since people are upset with the NYPost article…
“With today’s guilty plea, Mr. Mangione has accepted full responsibility for the death of Brian Thompson,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mangione’s attorney, said during a press conference outside the courthouse.
“On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” Mangione told the court, according to The Associated Press.
It’s a legal strategy so they can claim double jeopardy for the state charges.
The feds were dumb because they only went after the stalking charges.
Some legal experts expect the double jeopardy attempt to be struck down because of how much popularity this has and we all know courts are easily manipulated by politics and money these days.
You can’t claim double jeopardy for duplications of state and federal charges, it’s already been settled that because of the dual sovereignty doctrine it does not conflict with the 5th amendment.
Yes you can. It’s a NY state specific law.
The reverse isn’t true, like you state though. This is just specific to NY only.
Pretty sure new york has a law or part of its constitution that prevents this kind of double jeopardy.
That can’t be it. You can commit multiple crimes in one act, and state and federal murder are separate crimes (federal involves crossing state lines, or something else that gives them jurisdiction). My guess is it was their last chance for a plea deal.
Except that the prosecutor’s office has stated that no plea deal exists, and they’re still free to pursue the maximum sentence. That’s what makes the whole thing so confusing.
There’s basically no legitimate reason for him to plead guilty at this point, except for “I’m tired of this, just get it over with.” Pleading guilty only hurts his case, and doesn’t help him at all.
The prosecution isn’t in charge of the sentence though. He is still more likely to get a shorter sentence by confessing and pleading guilty.
so what if the reason is money. what if they are paying him/his family to just make this go away. what if someone offered him $100 million to just say he did it in order to keep us from continuing to talk about him as hero, st luigi, etc…
New York has a state specific double jeopardy law that would apply here. Charges at the federal level that stem from the same action are double jeopardy is also charged at the state level.
So if he pleads in the federal case, the state charges will be dropped. If he pleads at the state level though, the federal charges still stay.
Really, even though he’s pleading to the stalking charges, not murder? They can’t try him for that in New York?
NY prosecutors are disputing this. We certainly have not heard the last of it.
Correct. The charges are different, but they’re both for the same action, so they fall under New York’s double jeopardy law.
There’s no federal murder statute, but stalking that results in death is very similar. That’s what he plead guilty to, and it still carries up to life in prison.
But it gets rid of the state case.
No, it’s not. State and federal charges are kept separate, and aren’t bound by double jeopardy. It would potentially prevent him from being tried at the federal level again, but wouldn’t protect him against state charges. And the prosecutor’s office has stated that no plea deal exists, so they’re still going to pursue the maximum sentence.
That’s what makes it so confusing. The only real reason he has to enter a guilty plea is because he’s tired of fighting. Or maybe someone threatened him? But at that point, we’re veering into conspiracy theory territory.
New York has its own state specific law that prevents double jeopardy for cases at the state and federal level from applying.
New York has a law that safeguards against this kind of double jeopardy. By that I simply mean in a broad sense preventing state charges when federally charged. The nuance of how it will work in this case I feel we’re about to see get played out.
But what does that do for someone facing life?
He’s not facing a life sentence, I think they’re seeking 25 years. Which is still rather insane for a first offense, even homicide.
Mangione, 28, previously pleaded not guilty in April 2025 to murder, weapons and stalking charges brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors, but U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett threw out the murder and weapons charges over legal technicalities in a January ruling, leaving two stalking charges in places.
That ruling eliminated the possibility that Mangione would face the death penalty, though he still faces a possible sentence of life without parole if convicted on two charges: interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death.
That’s what the judge kept pointing out to him and he said he understood that he could have consecutive life sentences.
We don’t know a lot of the details behind the scenes by the defense and fed/state prosecutors there could be more coming out.